Comment by drekipus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drekipus | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> just an adjustment of tax brackets such that people below a certain threshold pay negative tax

This makes sense, and I am totally for this, as a current "total naysayer" against UBI.

Infact, I wish that "negative tax" was the flag bearing. I am totally 100% for that idea.

I am against the notion of UBI because it is too all encompassing and I am not confident that a singular system can handle all of the variables.

In my view (and from my discussions) it's framed as:

- "everyone gets an extra $X amount a week."

- "even the rich people so why are you complaining."

- "studies have shown that worker engagement has actually risen or remained steady, hasn't dropped at all"

- " it was shown that it made everyone way happier and productive"

But where does the money come from?

"Small trials in Finland shows that they didn't need to get extra money it just happened and it's easy as that so why are you against it????"

The most common UBI variant is to simply give everyone the equivalent of a tax refund, no questions asked. Then, to pay for that, the tax rates at the higher income brackets go up.

Very low or zero income: the government pays you a basic income.

Low income: they still pay you, and you have to pay a negligible amount of tax on your extra income from work. Crucially, your benefits don’t disappear instantly if you get a job, unlike with many welfare programs now.

Mid-low income: you pay the same in taxes as the basic income, for a net tax rate of zero.

Higher incomes: your net tax after UBI increases proportionately to your income from work, steeper than before UBI.

Taxes are already too high.

>you pay the same in taxes as the basic income, for a net tax rate of zero

I think this is the make believe part. In Australia, we have a goods and services tax of 10% on every purchase, plus an income tax of around 19% for amounts from 18-45k (thats low/mid-low).

All in all, about 9k in tax for this low bracket. If we're paying that for all 26 million people here.. hey I guess that's probably pretty doable. Damn

There is always some point with UBI where the effective tax rate is zero — because the negative tax and the positive tax cancel out. The specifics (GST/VAT) don’t matter.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com